


if i stumble

by but_seriously



Category: Teen Wolf (TV), The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: 500 years of slowburn, Angst, BIG ASS FAMILIES, Druids, F/M, Family Dynamics, Multiple Crossovers, Step-siblings, Werewolves, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:20:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23816806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/but_seriously/pseuds/but_seriously
Summary: The first time Caroline saw him again she’d thought she’d seen a ghost./ or, the Forbes-Salvatore-Mikaelson blended family comes together for Wedding Weekend, a mockery of a reunion. It's rainy, it's sticky, it's humid. A perfect Indian summer. What lurks at night, however, is far from perfect.
Relationships: Allison Argent & Lydia Martin & Caroline Forbes, Bonnie Bennett & Caroline Forbes, Caroline Forbes & Lydia Martin, Caroline Forbes & Rebekah Mikaelson, Caroline Forbes/Klaus Mikaelson, Liz Forbes/Mikael, Lydia Martin/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 10
Kudos: 18





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> welcome! it is i, trying my hand once again at crossovers. in light of the quarantine i've decided to shake the dust off this WIP which has been in the P since 2014. no time like the present to start a new fic right??? /manic laughs
> 
> lydia, caroline and rebekah will be at the forefront of this au (girls-wise), with a heavy sprinkle of allison, bonnie and the other gals too.
> 
> ships may or may not change over time, but i'm pretty much set on them by now. you might see some background shipping but it's just there to add some spicy.
> 
> this is HEAVILY au, some lores from both shows might have been shaken up a bit by me, but characters remain the same, except for the familial ties.

**prologue;**

Dinner is always a quiet affair.

There will be no scrapings of the cutlery across expensive china, the wine is chilled and unimpressive, the smiles – forced at best. Mikael will ask Damon how his day went. Damon will respond, “It was fine, step-daddy-o.”

Mikael will nod, jaw clenched.

Mikael hates it when Damon calls him that.

Liz’s smile looks refracted through the flickering table candles and Rebekah will be thinking of the mint chip ice-cream brownie squares she and Caroline had made before dinner; Stefan will be looking out the window, quiet and subdued. He does not know why he’s here. If he and Kol got along better, perhaps Kol might be nudging his feet under the table, but as it was, Kol would be nudging Elijah’s, tilting his jaw ever so subtly at Caroline, who is staring down at her sweet potato, her fork and knife clenched in rigid fingers.

And at Klaus, who’s eating with just one hand.

—

“You know,” Klaus begins conversationally, “Webster’s defines marriage as the formal union between man and woman, typically followed by adjectives like _happy_ and _joyous._ ”

“Is there a point to this?” Caroline replies under her breath, flowers clenched in her hand, grin fixed on her face.

In the corner of her eye she sees Lydia running with balloons at the edge of the estate, Tyler chasing after her.

And then Klaus is in her view again.

“There is nothing happy nor joyous about today,” he murmurs as Mr. Gilbert tells them to shift a little bit more to the left, his lips dangerously close to her ears.

“Speak for yourself,” she shoots, side-stepping him, but one glare from Mr. Gilbert and she’s back beside him sighing. “Look at Mom. Look at your dad. I’ve never seen them smile so big.”

Rebekah leans her head on Stefan’s shoulder, Damon’s exchanging smirks with Kol, Elijah looks weary but he still has a smile on his face, which is more than she can say about Finn, really. Finn doesn’t even try.

A grin forms on Klaus’ lips. When he smiles, he smiles with his whole face, but his eyes – teeth glinting in the sun, cheeks dimpling, and his eyes – they don’t crinkle, there is no warmth in them, no light. When he smiles, he looks roguish. Hungry. She looks away hastily even as he says, “Just wait ‘til dinner, sweetheart.”

“Alright!” Mr. Gilbert rubs his hands together. He adjusts the tripod, messes with the camera’s settings one last time before calling, “One, two—”

Caroline lets out a gasp as she feels Klaus’s stubble scrape her cheek, feels his lips on her skin, and when the pictures come out Liz beams like she never has before, oh _look_ at how our gorgeous children are getting along.

—

Everyone talks about it, of course.

Living in small town Mystic Falls, where you can get froyo and tequila at the same damn place, it’s impossible not to.

“Where will they sleep?” Caroline asks. Stefan doesn’t look up from his writing from all the way across the room, but she can tell he’s listening. Damon’s messing around with a deflated ball outside.

There was something wobbly about Liz’s smile – like the kiwi konnyaku jelly Caroline liked to make in the sweltering summer, something a bit off, like it hadn’t set properly in the mold. Liz says, “I’m making up the guest room. We’ll make it work.”

It’s not even three hours later that they have their first family scuffle – Damon had pulled on her pigtails, stolen her dolls, dangled them over the toilet; Stefan had come barreling out of nowhere and lunged, but not before Damon grabbed for the tulle of her ballerina skirt. The three of them end up in a heap on the cold tiles, shower curtains draping heavily over their heads, and Liz had sent them to bed without dinner, matching bumps on all of their foreheads.

“I hate them,” she whispers fiercely into her pillow, which in hindsight was probably a little unfair to Stefan, since he _had_ come to her defense; doesn’t even care that their parents had gone on a trip to Vienna and never came back. She’s seven years old and her favourite doll smells like dog breath and she _hates_ them.

—

Rebekah leads Caroline through the throng, the soft pads of her fingers bouncing against her own. It’s in the air all around her—the acrid burn of pot, the excitement dripping of tequila-washed breaths, the static bursts of hip meeting hip, hands meeting hair. Rebekah closes her eyes, drinking everything in, lopsided grin sparking off her neon pink lips, her voice cutting shrilly through the booming bass of the song playing, “Isn’t this great? And it’s all for _us_.”

There’s a rumbling when Matt Donovan staggers into the banisters fifteen feet above them, “Welcome back, Beks!”

She blows a kiss off her fingertips before flouncing off to the next room, leaving Caroline no choice but to follow her.

Something green and neon flashes in her eyes as she’s shouldering her way through the throng, strong fingers grabbing onto her upper arms, yanking.

“What d’you think you’re doing here?” He already typically has a gaudy glow necklace around his neck.

 _Urgh_ , she thinks, shoving against him. “ _Was_ going to grab a beer.”

“At a Mikaelson party?” Damon drags her into a corner. “I don’t think so. You, go home.”

“What?” she hisses. “No way, I was invited _specifically_ —”

“By Her Majesty, Queen Beks, first of her name?” Damon’s eyes roll as they are wont to do, “after what, one compliment about your shoes, some passive-aggressive quips about hair extensions and Uggs and suddenly you’re hashtag besties?”

“At least I get invited to these things, all _you_ do is show up where you’re unwanted.”

“Not entirely unwanted.” Damon winks. Caroline turns to see Rebekah’s brother, tall, nice shoulders, mysterious dark eyes that always have that condescending twinkle about them – Elijah? – smirking back, tugging lightly on that stupid tie he always wears. She always watched him in class, watches the way he regards all of them with cool eyes, nodding a curt _Of course_ , _sir,_ when Mr. Saltzman asked him to get copies of this, of that.

She’d thought that he was just doing odd jobs, probably waiting around for Cambridge to call him back, but one day she walks in on him shoving someone into a locker and, _damn_. Don’t get her wrong, he’s weirdly hot and all but with his I’m Mr. Perfect Teacher’s Aide! get-up and accent that she can’t quite place, she would’ve never thought he had it in him slugging someone so hard it causes a dent in Emilia Roy’s locker.

“I’m warning you, Niklaus, you say anything about her one more time—“

Her shoes skid against the dull marble and suddenly they’re looking her way, and it’s like she’s struck, unmoving.

“It appears you’ve procured an audience, ‘Lijah.” The cut in Klaus’s lower lip swells red when his smile stretches into the most contemptuous grin she’s ever seen.

She’d mumbled an excuse, turned right on her heel even though that deserted corridor was the shortest way to chem lab and she’s already like, fifteen minutes late. It’s not that she’s scared – alright, maybe she is. A little. – but the Mikaelsons were new, and _strange_. She’d seen the trucks and trailers coming and going around town, prepping up that ridiculously huge mansion at the end of Primrose Street, and they’d come in the dead of the night, and then the next day integrated themselves into town as if they’d been there all along. Tall. Daunting. Magnanimous—

Dangerous.

And the thought of Damon winking at one of them? “ _Ew_. You know he only got that job with Alaric so he can keep an eye on his siblings, like how creepy-codependent are they? And I thought you were with Enzo!”

Damon clicks his tongue, amused. “Relax, sister, it’s not that. We’re, and that’s Stefan and I, we’re … helping Elijah out with something.”

Caroline tugs on his arm, lowering her voice. “It has nothing to do with Klaus, right? Please tell me you’re not messing with him, you _know_ that weird pseudo-Tenenbaum feud he has with Elijah.”

“Told you she’d try to mom us,” Stefan says, appearing out of literally nowhere like he always does. He has a beer in his hand but he’s not drinking it; raises his eyebrows and jerks it away when he catches Caroline looking. “Anyway, Care – It’s nothing you should worry about. Go have fun. Or go home, I think I’d prefer that.”

“Oh, so you two get to run around like kings of the world, but I can’t go to a party? Whatever you’ve got against the Mikaelsons, that’s all you.” She throws them a dirty look over her shoulder as she leaves. Stefan gives a tired smile before heading the other way, beer dropped into Damon’s hand.

Damon catches her wrist. “Hey, I meant it. _Home_.”

She snatches the Bud Lite from his hands. “Fuck off, Damon.”

“Yo, underage-pants. Not supposed to be drinking, I promised Liz.”

Caroline scoffs into the can. “Well, it’s not like Mom’s here.”

She swigs deep.

“Caroline?”

She chokes. Everyone around them has gone silent.

Liz is standing before them, an I’m Disappointed Now But That’s Only For Show Just _Wait_ Til You Get Home frown on her face at Damon looking like he’s helping tilt the beer can into her mouth, and what a _time_ for Stefan to come crashing through the door down the hall, fist slugged across Klaus Mikaelson’s face, the two of them crashing into a glass armoire.

And then, through the din—

“What the _hell_ is going on here?”

Mikael M. Mikaelson standing at the doorway looking like he’s laying against a bed of storm clouds the way he’s silhouetted, his face so terrifying the heavens thought to cast a shadow over it.

“Oh, fuck,” comes Klaus’ muffled response.

—

Solitude only comes when Lydia visits for a weekend. Home has been crazy, she tells Caroline, looking tired and a little fidgety. “Needed to get away for a while.”

“It’s cool,” Caroline shrugs. Liz had needed someone to be home, so Damon and Stefan were the ones to go get froyo with the rest of their soon-to-be step siblings.

Not that anything was official yet, but it seemed pretty inevitable. They have dinner at the Mikaelsons’, the two whole families _together_ , more often these days – but that isn’t the shocking thing. The shocking thing is the fact that Liz actually finishes work earlier these days. Even in happiness Caroline still finds something to bitch about the situation.

“Hey—” Lydia’s voice breaks through her train of thought. “Pose with that thing, Allison wants a pic.”

Laughingly Caroline immediately strikes a pose, all hips and cheeky smiles, carved bullet balanced on her nose. Once Lydia gets the perfect shot Caroline joins her on her bed, examining the bullet. “Is it really for me?”

“Yeah,” Lydia says, eyes focused on her thumbs dancing across her phone screen. “Allison went crazy learning to make them lately. She wanted me to give one to you when I told her I was coming down here.”

“Wow,” Caroline breathes. She takes in the pointed end, the smooth curved edges. “What did _you_ get?”

“This.” Lydia wears it around her neck on a long chain – it’s an arrowhead, smooth and lethal-looking, but quite blunt to the touch. “Allison ‘Archery’ Argent.”

“That’s nice,” Caroline smiles, and tucks the bullet into her bedside drawer. “Triple A.”

“Hey, who’s that?” Lydia’s rolled off the bed in one movement and is leaning over her dresser, grabbing a polaroid off the mirror. “Caroline, this guy is _hot_. Don’t tell me it’s Kl—hey!”

“Sneaky!” Caroline flicks Lydia’s nose with the polaroid snap. It joins the bullet in her drawer too.

“When you were telling me about him you sure didn’t mention that he looked like _that_.” Lydia smirks. “And you certainly weren’t behaving like _this_. Kissed him yet?”

“No,” Caroline says, turning her eyes away. “Not planning to.”

—

Oh, _but—_

A gaze too long, and too lingering; anger meeting anger, blue meeting blue.

“I _fancy_ you,” he yells, rounding on her, stepping right into her space. “Is it so bloody hard to believe?”

“Yes!” she exclaims, it is _hard_. “You can’t act one way and say something else.”

Stony faced, Klaus takes in a deep, calming breath. It only half works. “Well, secret’s out.”

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Caroline asks. She can’t help sounding indignant – Klaus had thrust upon her his confession, they were supposed to be yelling, snarking, biting. Now he’s stumbling his way through the furniture, out of the room.

“Whatever you want with it,” he says over his shoulder. And then the door slams.

—

The first time they kiss it’s messy and rough and hands hands hands and she swears _to God_ she wasn’t the one who’d initiated it and he’s groaning into her mouth because _he_ certainly hadn’t leaned in first and now she’s refusing to even touch him and he’s pushing her down harder into the bed because of it.

It’s maybe the night of Liz and Mikael’s sixth date since he’d graciously offered to buy her coffee since she’d busted the party and he’d come home from a weekend business trip to Finn dolorously trying to mend the unhinged door, Elijah pulling shards of glass out of Stefan and Klaus, inebriated teens falling all around.

Yes, it was. Liz had come home breathless, smelling like champagne and a touch of raw oysters, oblivious to Caroline’s closed door.

He’d held his hand over her mouth to the sound of Liz’s heels click-clacking to her room, both of their breathing harsh, their eyes wide.

She swats his hand aside. Hisses, “What the hell, Klaus? Mikael said—I’m supposed to be tutoring y—”

“Please, sweetheart,” he snaps quietly, ear still trained for Liz, “I was the one figuring out the R-group types _for_ you—”

She knees him in the stomach and pushes him off, he crashes down on her shag rug.

“Perfect. Was aiming for the floor anyway,” he says before grabbing her, barely grunting when she falls over him, smiling salaciously when she ends up straddling him.

“This is so wrong,” she whispers against his lips, “my brothers are going to kill me. Well, you first, and _then_ me.” Her eyes close and her breath breaks into a gasp when his teeth find her neck. He’s breathing urgently against her skin, his hips rolling up to meet hers, expensive distressed denim against thin layered cotton.

“They’ll get over it,” he grins up at her, hands on her waist. “But isn’t this where the appeal lay? Sweet Caroline Forbes rolling around with bad boy Klaus behind her precious brothers’ backs?”

“Stop talking,” she orders, her fingers curling into his shirt.

“I love it when you’re domineering.” His fingers trace up her sides, silencing her scoff. They curve down her elbows, stroke her arms, wrap around her wrists. She feels his touch like the burn of acid, searing her skin, stinging her all the way down to her bones. He knows how to be cruel, when to smirk; never knew how to walk away from a fight. But this, with his hands firm but gentle around her wrist, with his hips fitting against hers - she doesn’t know him like this. Does he even know himself like this?

“Caroline,” he says softly. “Look at me.”

Despite herself, she opens her eyes. Maybe it was the way he sounded, so wounded, like he’d been kicked. She looks down at him, hair falling around in messy curls around her bra straps. He’s blinking his cerulean eyes at her, watching her hungrily, gulping her down, like he wants to capture her in this light.

“Is it really that bad?” he asks. “The thought of you and I?”

“The thought of you and I,” she repeats mockingly under her breath. “See, that’s the thing, Klaus. You say these things, and in the same breath you go ruining my friends’ lives. Do you know how long Stefan’s been with Katherine? He _loved_ her. And you had to—”

“Do you know how many people love Katherine?” he asks roughly. “She’s a manipulator, she uses people to her advantage—she just wanted something from him.”

“No.” Caroline shakes her head, adamant. “It was different with Stefan. It was true.”

“Then it must be true with Elijah too,” he says, doesn’t even bother to mask the disdain in his voice, “because that’s what he comes home blubbering whenever he goes see her. Tried to warn him,” he finishes casually.

“Is that what this is about, then?” she traces the purpling bruise under his eye, and she can see him straining, the effort not to lean into her touch. “Like that time at school?”

“No.” He jerks away, head falling against a fallen cardigan, eyes dark and furious all of a sudden.

“Mikael?” she whispers.

“I think _you_ should stop talking now,” he growls, and before she knows it he’s flipped them around, lips pressed firmly to hers.

—

“I guess my sister is off-limits now that she’s going to be your sister, too.”

Klaus freezes.

Stefan’s head slowly lifts from the journal he’s hunched over.

Rebekah drops the cheese grater. “What?”

“Oh, you know,” Damon says airily, before stopping in a ridiculous show of confusion. “What, you mean to tell me no one else knew about Klaus and Caroline Frenching it up behind Chem Lab 3 every Thursday?”

The oven dings, yet another night of pizza while Mikael wooed Liz, but no one goes to check on it. Not even Elijah, who’s surveying the scene with cold amusement. Kol smirks, eyes flitting away from his tablet, “I call the defendant Caroline Forbes to the stand. Please give your statement.”

“For what?” Caroline laughs once. It claps like thunder in the chilly room. “That was _one_ time, Bonnie dared me. It meant nothing.”

Before Damon can open his stupid worm mouth she adds snidely, “Like I didn’t see you and Jeremy fooling around under the bleachers.”

Kol chortles. “You got me there, sister. Of course it would have to be a _dare_ for Nik to get to first base with you.”

Klaus’ jaw clenches. She can see it from across the room. His hands just itching to throw something, she knows. But she just laughs again, looks right into Damon’s eyes narrowing with suspicion, “I know, right?”

—

“Peach is so our colour,” Rebekah purrs appreciatively, examining her ass in the 360-degree mirror.

Caroline makes a sound of agreement, fiddling with the elaborate headpiece perched on her crown; do English weddings _seriously_ call for hats like these?

Rebekah gathers up the layers of tulle and silk, scampers up to her and slaps her hand away. “Don’t you dare, Caroline Forbes. Mathilde did your hair beautifully, a right fortune that lady costs just to make you look halfway decent enough to be a Mikaelson.”

“I’m not taking your name,” Caroline rolls her eyes. “Stefan, Damon and I agreed on it. I mean, can you imagine — Damon Salvatore-Forbes Mikaelson? Jesus.”

“I don’t need him staining my family crest anyway,” Rebekah tosses her hair. “Well. If my father were to marry anyone, I suppose your mother isn’t so bad. Imagine me having to share a room with Grotesque Gilbert. Though Kol would surely be pleased… But that _Katherine._ Wench.”

“They’re my best friends, shut up.”

“And I’m about to be your sister. I am _allowed_ ,” she retorts, before swanning out the room.

The door hasn’t even closed yet when she sees Klaus sidling in in the reflection of her mirror, shutting it soundlessly behind him. How he manages to look so wild but move so quietly is something she will never be able to fathom.

“You look beautiful,” he says, stepping up behind her. He smells like he looks too, something like the forest about him, a thrashing. She’d rested her head against his chest once, and she had heard his heart pounding, pounding, pounding. Nothing about him is ever still.

But today—

Klaus stares at her, head tilted just the slightest, one hand slowly reaching for her, warming up her naked shoulder. Her eyes cut to his in the glass. “We can’t. You heard Rebekah, we’re going to be sisters—broth— _siblings_. Oh, you get it,” she glares at the smirk pulling at his lips.

“Only on paper,” he sings, his breath tickling across the back of her neck. “So it’s technically not _wrong_.”

“People will talk.”

“It’s Mystic Falls,” he points out. “People always talk.”

She presses on, “ _Mikael_ —”

His face clouds over. “Don’t talk about Mikael.”

“Don’t talk down to me.” She turns around, defying, jaw-jutting, malignant.

His hands circle her waist, they slam against the mahogany dresser, keeping her there. “Don’t talk at all, then.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.” She grabs his tie.

He’s yanked forward, their lips just a breath away, if she were to tilt her head and if he were to close her eyes— her eyelashes flutter shut, waiting.

She feels his thumb graze her cheek, and he says, quietly, “Told you I’m not the one who leans in first.” Without even looking she _knows_ Klaus has the biggest shit-eating grin on his face right now.

—

Caroline chokes around her mouthful of brownie. She will look dazed for about a minute before thinking to answer Liz’s concerned, “Honey, you okay?” and Klaus’ simpering mock, “Yes, Caroline. Something wrong?”

Stefan will reach over and pat her back, Klaus will lean back in his chair, fingers steepled under his chin.

“I’m fine,” Caroline says demurely, lowering her napkin. “I just thought about something slimy and gross.”

“I’m sure Rebekah’s brownies aren’t that bad.”

“Shut up, Nik.”

“Language, Rebekah,” Mikael warns. “You shut up, boy. Damon, help your sister clear the table later.”

“You got it, step-daddy-o.”

Mikael’s smile strains.

Dinner, always a quiet affair.


	2. i want to feel my head overthrown

**one;**

.

.

_the beginning of the beginning_

**.**

The first time Caroline saw him again she’d thought she’d seen a ghost.

She’d caught a glimpse of him, once, looking through a child’s looking-glass— broken, of course, as one might expect when you find lost toys in the grass—bits of him illuminated like bursting kaleidoscope fragments brought to life by the sun turning above them, and the other bits – hidden. Distorted. Ugly, almost.

She lowers the looking-glass to find him watching her the way he always did: strangely, face a half turn away like it was only safe to look at her out of the corner of his eye; a half-formed idea sauntering into your head in the middle of the night, no trace left when the morning light comes creeping in. Just a half-turn of his head and it was almost like she’d never been there at all.

Lydia catches her staring and raises her hand in a strange sort of salute, a graceful one, flowers trailing down the corsage on her wrist. Her eyes squint against the sun. “Who’s that?”

—

_i want to feel my head overthrown  
i've got enough  
it's in the touch  
i kiss your knees and i try to be bold_

—

Looking back, Caroline realizes she sees with perfect clarity the events that had transpired the week before summer began, the summer that Rebekah learned how to drive and Stefan how to fall and Caroline how to break.

The summer Damon left for months and came back with a strange gun slipped into the back of his jeans.

The summer they found that body in their backyard.

The summer Lydia screamed and the whole town stilled.

It was dusk, and it was summer, and it was Caroline waking up with her hair tangled in Stefan’s fingers.

She listens to the sounds of her brother’s breathing, counts the lapses in between. It was calm enough to wash over her, pulling her back into the lull of sleep, before she realized why she was even up that early to begin with, and carefully pries herself out of his arms.

The floor creaks when her feet fall against the floorboards, but that’s to be expected in a house this old.

She doesn’t wince as she might have done before, knowing Stefan well enough to know he could sleep through a hailstorm, but not through the minute weeping he sometimes hears coming from his closet.

Rebekah is already in the kitchen when she shuffles in yawning, and so is Lydia, and the two of them seem to be engaged in some sort of stare-off over the boxes of cereal and bowls of chopped fruit. Caroline spears a pineapple and chews without grace, eyeing the two of them.

Several minutes pass.

“Well?” Caroline prompts finally, because of course she’s the one who has to.

“I found _this_ in my pantry this morning,” Rebekah says finally, witheringly, when it was clear that Lydia isn’t saying anything. She dips a strawberry into the Nutella jar and pops it into her mouth, never once breaking eye contact, “Messing around with my Fleur de Sel. You _know_ Finn got that for me from _France_. You _know_ how expens—”

“Oh my God, blah- blah- _blah_.” Lydia sets down her fork with a clatter, rolling her eyes so aggressively Caroline wonders if it hurt. “All this drama for a pinch of salt.”

Rebekah bristles. “For your information it isn’t _just_ a pinch of salt, it’s—”

“Hand-harvested, labor-intensive, relatively scarce sea salt scraped only from the top layer of salt before it sinks down to the bottom of large salt pans. Yes. I know.”

At Rebekah’s begrudgingly impressed – if not mollified – expression Lydia adds somewhat exasperatedly: “I read.”

Like the whole house needs reminding.

Lydia’s green eyes finally come to rest on something that isn’t Rebekah’s nose wrinkled in distaste. They land on the tangle of Caroline’s hair, the firm grip she has around her bright yellow mug. “You look like garbage,” she remarks, in the way one might remark upon the weather.

“It looks like rain,” Caroline replies, in the way one might attempt nonchalance after a particularly stinging remark.

“This makes for a _lovely_ ride to the airport,” Rebekah sighs, joining her by the window. The wind chimes Rebekah’s hung in the arch of their back porch shake out a silvery tune, so soft Caroline suddenly feels goose bumps fleshing out all across her arms.

At the table, Lydia accidentally knocks over the pitcher of orange juice.

In the three seconds it takes for the pitcher to roll off the table and shatter to the floor, Rebekah’s face twists into an expression of horrified vindication – vindicated, because, _of course_ this would be the sort of family her father decides to shack up with: she just _knew_ he was going to screw up her life somehow— horrified, because, _of course this would be the sort of family her father decides to shack up with_.

Of course.

_Of course._

“You know—” Caroline is on her knees, kneeling over a rag and a pool of orange juice, and Lydia’s eyes flit to hers, “if she doesn’t make that face like, five times a day, her dramatic exits would actually have an effect on me.”

“Hm,” Lydia yawns, knowing a thing or two about dramatic exits.

—

Rebekah does not question much when Caroline opts out of airport duty: she needs to work on her college applications, she needs to get dinner ready, she needs to keep Lydia out of Rebekah’s pantry (and it’s this that Rebekah is most satisfied with, really), and she spends the rest of the day on the porch with Lydia, sipping on sweet iced lemonade.

“I see this place hasn’t changed,” Lydia observes, finger idly scrolling down her tablet — an article on cosmic microwave background emissions in electromagnetic spectrums, which all sounds like white noise to Caroline, if she’s being honest.

Lydia has been reading more recently, she’s lost weight, her hair isn’t as curled as it used to be, and Caroline thinks Grandma would click her tongue: after all, she and Lydia did get their curls from the Forbes side of the family.

“No, not much,” she says agreeably, and studies the dark circles under Lydia’s eyes that she would not have noticed if she hadn’t been the one to lend Lydia her new concealer.

She knows why, but she doesn’t have the heart to bring it up.

When Dad had died she had wanted to punch everyone in the vicinity for even saying his name, and even though she had met Allison only a handful of times at random family events, even she had paled when she heard the news.

“How’s Beacon Hills compared to good ole’ Mystic Falls?” Caroline props her ankles on the wooden railings.

It’s indeed started to rain like her earlier prediction and she wonders how Damon and Kol are getting along in the car: it’s been two years and they’ve cultivated a tolerating, if not begrudgingly respectful relationship, which is more than what she could ever hope for Stefan.

“Warmer, that’s for damn sure,” Lydia mutters. She casts her tablet aside and tosses her back against the cushioned lounge chair, her ankles joining Caroline’s.

The Indian summer that had stumbled into Virginia last week had ended with the outpour of beginning rain, the frost that sometimes sits in the cracks of their windows in the early morning before disappearing into dew.

Lydia doesn’t visit much; she’d said she’d been busy with her AP-class-packed schedule, but Caroline always garnered the sense that there was more she wasn’t telling.

Especially now, when Lydia murmurs, softly, “Lonelier.”

Caroline reaches for her hand, fingers tightening over fingers. For the briefest of moments Lydia lets her, she flashes a quick smile before the impenetrable Martin shield is up again, but Caroline remembers the returning squeeze.

The door behind them creaks open and Stefan shuffles onto the porch, freshly showered and dressed in his usual sweater. Lydia and Stefan make small talk about school, graduation; make bets on how long Finn’s fiancé will stand Damon at the reception dinner this coming weekend.

But Caroline’s met Sage. She’s no pretty blue flower. She’d fit in well with their ever-growing clan.

“Were you the one who put Beks in a mood?” Stefan asks.

“Hardly,” Lydia sniffs. “You know how obsessed she is with her salt?”

Stefan chuckles. “You’re telling me. I accidentally walked in on her in the bathroom with it—”

“Ew, Stefan.”

“Not like that. The room was dark; she was still lighting candles and stuff, I didn’t _see_ anything—”

“Learn to knock!”

And then the conversation steers to—

“They should be back from the airport by now, right?” Stefan asks. He’s pulling lint from his sweater the exact moment they hear the crunch of gravel against tire. The loom of Mikael’s car through the double gilded gates, round the fountain, and then—

“Darling Caroline!” is the first thing she hears, and then she’s swallowed by Kol’s wool-covered chest. “You grew!”

“You sound like Aunt Millie,” Caroline rolls her eyes – but then her eyebrows raise _way up_ , because Kol’s the one who’d grown. “Dude, how are you so tall? What kind of drugs have you been taking?”

“Just snorting all that _fresh_ London smog, Caroline,” Kol grins, before he moves on to Rebekah, catching her around the waist and tossing her screaming into a pile of leaves Stefan had raked yesterday evening. Everyone winces. Mikael did like a clean driveway.

Elijah steps out of the car next, in a _suit_ of all things, not looking rumpled in the least. Kol looks like he’s collected three days’ worth of stubble, like the apocalypse had hurricane’d through the flight here, but Elijah looks like he’d just gone for a stroll in the park.

“ _How?_ ” Caroline asks, exasperated.

“I make use of whatever comforts were provided,” Elijah smiles. “You look well, Caroline.”

“Thanks,” she responds with a slight eye roll. Elijah doesn’t say a thing; he’s used to it by now.

Her real question dies on her throat – Damon’s rolled out of the car and is taking turns tag-teaming Rebekah with Kol, shoving her down into more leaves; Liz is trying her hardest to make her way towards them without having Damon or Kol jostle past her; Mikael is on the porch, one eye on the leaves strewn across the driveway and his other on a coolly uncomfortable Lydia.

The housekeeper is attending to Elijah’s luggage. Caroline looks into the car, it was empty save for their discarded coats.

Stefan appears behind her, greeting Elijah with the smallest of nods. After a furtive glance at Caroline he asks, “Where’s Klaus?”

“He made a friend over there, bless his heart,” Elijah says. He sounds like he’s being condescending, which is nothing new. Caroline hugs him anyway. He smells like expensive cologne and freshly folded shirts. “And Henrik enjoys his presence, so he decided to stay a few days more.”

Caroline pastes a smile onto her face, ignoring Stefan’s stare. “That’s great.”

“Against my better judgement,” Mikael says, joining them by the car. “The wedding is this Saturday, the boy absolutely wasted his ticket. The next one is coming out of his own pocket, and it won’t be on the jet.”

Caroline clears her throat. “Oh – so he’s not coming down for the wedding, then?”

Mikael looks almost surprised that she’s addressing him. They don’t talk much despite Liz’s many attempts – always limited to stilted dinner conversation. He’s not _so_ bad, Caroline reasons sometimes. Sure, he looks like he could commit murder with just his thumb alone, but he makes a mean peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

“Oh, of course he is, honey,” Liz says, wrapping her arm around Caroline.

Caroline leans into her mother to breathe in the soothing scent of _mom_ , warm sweaters and peach cobbler and ink from all the paperwork she goes through every night. “Just not as quick as we expected. We’ll have to go by chance with his suit then – the rest of your brothers have some final adjustments to go through later.”

The house is alive again with the return of the Mikaelsons. Caroline and Lydia gather their things up from the porch and decideto go to the lake. It’s still a gloomy day, but no way are they going to stick around when Mikael demands the driveway to be cleared later.

—

“Kinda rude of him, don’t you think?” Lydia asks as she gingerly dips her toes, painted green, into the chill surface of the lake. She shudders and pulls it out again. “I mean, I know he loves to shock people, but it’s his own brother’s wedding.”

“You seem to have a lot of opinions on that,” Caroline says mildly. “Mikael’s hardly bothered, he just wants something to gripe about –”

Lydia rolls her eyes. “I’m not actually concerned. It’s for _your_ benefit. If you’re going to remain stoic about it, someone’s got to emote. It’s unfair to have to swallow everything down.”

Ah. Caroline carefully looks away from Lydia, from the way she looks dangerously close to flinging a rock into the lake. She’s not talking entirely about Klaus, she knows. Back in Beacon Hills there were probably too many people Lydia wanted to avoid at the moment.

“If you know so much how it feels, why do you bother?” Caroline snaps, cool façade down the drain and into the lake. “I don’t want to talk about Klaus.”

“And _I_ do not want to talk about Allison,” Lydia flings back.

They extend their pinky fingers and shake firmly. Resolutely.


End file.
